Ayesha: The Return of She, by H. Rider Haggard

Chapter 3

The Beacon Light

A week later came our opportunity of making this ascent of the mountain, for now in mid-winter it ceased storming,
and hard frost set in, which made it possible to walk upon the surface of the snow. Learning from the monks that at
this season ovis poli and other kinds of big-horned sheep and game descended from the hills to take refuge in
certain valleys, where they scraped away the snow to find food, we announced that we were going out to hunt. The excuse
we gave was that we were suffering from confinement and needed exercise, having by the teaching of our religion no
scruples about killing game.

Our hosts replied that the adventure was dangerous, as the weather might change at any moment. They told us,
however, that on the slopes of this very mountain which we desired to climb, there was a large natural cave where, if
need be, we could take shelter, and to this cave one of them, somewhat younger and more active than the rest, offered
to guide us. So, having manufactured a rougri tent from skins, and laden our old yak, now in the best of condition,
with food and garments, on one still morning we started as soon as it was light. Under the guidance of the monk, who,
notwithstanding his years, walked very well, we reached the northern slope of the peak before mid-day. Here, as he had
said, we found a great cave of which the opening was protected by an over-hanging ledge of rock. Evidently this cave
was the favourite place of shelter for game at certain seasons of the year, since in it were heaped vast accumulations
of their droppings, which removed any fear of a lack of fuel.

The rest of that short day we spent in setting up our tent in the cave, in front of which we lit a large fire, and
in a survey of the slopes of the mountain, for we told the monk that we were searching for the tracks of wild sheep.
Indeed, as it happened, on our way back to the cave we came across a small herd of ewes feeding upon the mosses in a
sheltered spot where in summer a streamlet ran. Of these we were so fortunate as to kill two, for no sportsman had ever
come here, and they were tame enough, poor things. As meat would keep for ever in that temperature, we had now
sufficient food to last us for a fortnight, and dragging the animals down the snow slopes to the cave, we skinned them
by the dying light.

That evening we supped upon fresh mutton, a great luxury, which the monk enjoyed as much as we did, since, whatever
might be his views as to taking life, he liked mutton. Then we turned into the tent and huddled ourselves together for
warmth, as the temperature must have been some degrees below zero. The old monk rested well enough, but neither Leo nor
I slept over much, for wonder as to what we might see from the top of that mountain banished sleep.

Next morning at the dawn, the weather being still favourable, our companion returned to the monastery, whither we
said we would follow him in a day or two.

Now at last we were alone, and without wasting an instant began our ascent of the peak. It was many thousand feet
high and in certain places steep enough, but the deep, frozen snow made climbing easy, so that by midday we reached the
top. Hence the view was magnificent. Beneath us stretched the desert, and beyond it a broad belt of fantastically
shaped, snow-clad mountains, hundreds and hundreds of them; in front, to the right, to the left, as far as the eye
could reach.

“They are just as I saw them in my dream so many years ago,” muttered Leo; “the same, the very same.”

“And where was the fiery light?” I asked.

“Yonder, I think;” and he pointed north by east.

“Well, it is not there now,” I answered, “and this place is cold.”

So, since it was dangerous to linger, lest the darkness should overtake us on our return journey, we descended the
peak again, reaching the cave about sunset. The next four days we spent in the same way. Every morning we crawled up
those wearisome banks of snow, and every afternoon we slid and tobogganed down them again, till I grew heartily tired
of the exercise.

On the fourth night, instead of coming to sleep in the tent Leo sat himself down at the entrance to the cave. I
asked him why he did this, but he answered impatiently, because he wished it, so I left him alone. I could see, indeed,
that he was in a strange and irritable mood, for the failure of our search oppressed him. Moreover, we knew, both of
us, that it could not be much prolonged, since the weather might break at any moment, when ascents of the mountain
would become impossible.

In the middle of the night I was awakened by Leo shaking me and saying —“Come here, Horace, I have something to show
you.”

Reluctantly enough I crept from between the rugs and out of the tent. To dress there was no need, for we slept in
all our garments. He led me to the mouth of the cave and pointed northward. I looked. The night was very dark; but far,
far away appeared a faint patch of light upon the sky, such as might be caused by the reflection of a distant fire.

“What do you make of it?” he asked anxiously.

“Nothing in particular,” I answered, “it may be anything. The moon — no, there is none, dawn — no, it is too
northerly, and it does not break for three hours. Something burning, a house, or a funeral pyre, but how can there be
such things here? I give it up.”

“I think it is a reflection, and that if we were on the peak we should see the light which throws it,” said Leo
slowly.

“Yes, but we are not, and cannot get there in the dark.”

“Then, Horace, we must spend a night there.”

“It will be our last in this incarnation,” I answered with a laugh, “that is if it comes on to snow.”

“We must risk it, or I will risk it. Look, the light has faded;” and there at least he was right, for undoubtedly it
had. The night was as black as pitch.

“Let’s talk it over tomorrow,” I said, and went back to the tent, for I was sleepy and incredulous, but Leo sat on
by the mouth of the cave.

At dawn I awoke and found breakfast already cooked.

“I must start early,” Leo explained.

“Are you mad?” I asked. “How can we camp on that place?”

“I don’t know, but I am going. I must go, Horace.”

“Which means that we both must go. But how about the yak?”

“Where we can climb, it can follow,” he answered.

So we strapped the tent and other baggage, including a good supply of cooked meat, upon the beast’s back, and
started. The tramp was long since we were obliged to make some detours to avoid slopes of frozen snow in which, on our
previous ascents, we had cut footholds with an axe, for up these the laden animal could not clamber. Reaching the
summit at length, we dug a hole, and there pitched the tent, piling the excavated snow about its sides. By this time it
began to grow dark, and having descended into the tent, yak and all, we ate our food and waited.

Oh! what cold was that. The frost was fearful, and at this height a wind blew whose icy breath passed through all
our wrappings, and seemed to burn our flesh beneath as though with hot irons. It was fortunate that we had brought the
yak, for without the warmth from its shaggy body I believe that we should have perished, even in our tent. For some
hours we watched, as indeed we must, since to sleep might mean to die, yet saw nothing save the lonely stars, and heard
nothing in that awful silence, for here even the wind made no noise as it slid across the snows. Accustomed as I was to
such exposure, my faculties began to grow numb and my eyes to shut, when suddenly Leo said —“Look, below the red
star!”

I looked, and there high in the sky was the same curious glow which we had seen upon the previous night. There was
more than this indeed, for beneath it, almost on a line with us and just above the crests of the intervening peaks,
appeared a faint sheet of fire and revealed against it, something black. Whilst we watched, the fire widened, spread
upwards and grew in power and intensity. Now against its flaming background the black object became clearly visible,
and lo! it was the top of a soaring pillar surmounted by a loop. Yes, we could see its every outline. It was the
crux ansata, the Symbol of Life itself.

The symbol vanished, the fire sank. Again it blazed up more fiercely than before and the loop appeared afresh, then
once more disappeared. A third time the fire shone, and with such intensity, that no lightning could surpass its
brilliance. All around the heavens were lit up, and, through the black needle-shaped eye of the symbol, as from the
flare of a beacon, or the search-light of a ship, one fierce ray shot across the sea of mountain tops and the spaces of
the desert, straight as an arrow to the lofty peak on which we lay. Yes, it lit upon the snow, staining it red, and
upon the wild, white faces of us who watched, though to the right and left of us spread thick darkness. My compass lay
before me on the snow, and I could even see its needle; and beyond us the shape of a white fox that had crept near,
scenting food. Then it was gone as swiftly as it came. Gone too were the symbol and the veil of flame behind it, only
the glow lingered a little on the distant sky.

For awhile there was silence between us, then Leo said —“Do you remember, Horace, when we lay upon the Rocking Stone
where her cloak fell upon me —” as he said the words the breath caught in his throat —“how the ray of light
was sent to us in farewell, and to show us a path of escape from the Place of Death? Now I think that it has been sent
again in greeting to point out the path to the Place of Life where Ayesha dwells, whom we have lost awhile.”

“It may be so,” I answered shortly, for the matter was beyond speech or argument, beyond wonder even. But I knew
then, as I know now that we were players in some mighty, predestined drama; that our parts were written and we must
speak them, as our path was prepared and we must tread it to the end unknown. Fear and doubt were left behind, hope was
sunk in certainty; the fore-shadowing visions of the night had found an actual fulfilment and the pitiful seed of the
promise of her who died, growing unseen through all the cruel, empty years, had come to harvest.

No, we feared no more, not even when with the dawn rose the roaring wind, through which we struggled down the
mountain slopes, as it would seem in peril of our lives at every step; not even as hour by hour we fought our way
onwards through the whirling snow-storm, that made us deaf and blind. For we knew that those lives were charmed. We
could not see or hear, yet we were led. Clinging to the yak, we struggled downward and homewards, till at length out of
the turmoil and the gloom its instinct brought us unharmed to the door of the monastery, where the old abbot embraced
us in his joy, and the monks put up prayers of thanks. For they were sure that we must be dead. Through such a storm,
they said, no man had ever lived before.

It was still mid-winter, and oh! the awful weariness of those months of waiting. In our hands was the key, yonder
amongst those mountains lay the door, but not yet might we set that key within its lock. For between us and these
stretched the great desert, where the snow rolled like billows, and until that snow melted we dared not attempt its
passage. So we sat in the monastery, and schooled our hearts to patience.

Still even to these frozen wilds of Central Asia spring comes at last. One evening the air felt warm, and that night
there were only a few degrees of frost. The next the clouds banked up, and in the morning not snow was falling from
them, but rain, and we found the old monks preparing their instruments of husbandry, as they said that the season of
sowing was at hand. For three days it rained, while the snows melted before our eyes. On the fourth torrents of water
were rushing down the mountain and the desert was once more brown and bare, though not for long, for within another
week it was carpeted with flowers. Then we knew that the time had come to start.

“But whither go you? Whither go you?” asked the old abbot in dismay. “Are you not happy here? Do you not make great
strides along the Path, as may be known by your pious conversation? Is not everything that we have your own? Oh! why
would you leave us?”

“We are wanderers,” we answered, “and when we see mountains in front of us we must cross them.”

Kou-en looked at us shrewdly, then asked —“What do you seek beyond the mountains? And, my brethren, what merit is
gathered by hiding the truth from an old man, for such concealments are separated from falsehoods but by the length of
a single barleycorn. Tell me, that at least my prayers may accompany you.”

“Holy abbot,” I said, “awhile ago yonder in the library you made a certain confession to us.”

“Oh! remind me not of it,” he said, holding up his hands. “Why do you wish to torment me?”

“Far be the thought from us, most kind friend and virtuous man,” I answered. “But, as it chances, your story is very
much our own, and we think that we have experience of this same priestess.”

“Speak on,” he said, much interested.

So I told him the outlines of our tale; for an hour or more I told it while he sat opposite to us swaying his head
like a tortoise and saying nothing. At length it was done.

“Now,” I added, “let the lamp of your wisdom shine upon our darkness. Do you not find this story wondrous, or do you
perchance think that we are liars?”

“Brethren of the great monastery called the World,” Kou-en answered with his customary chuckle, “why should I think
you liars who, from the moment my eyes fell upon you, knew you to be true men? Moreover, why should I hold this tale so
very wondrous? You have but stumbled upon the fringe of a truth with which we have been acquainted for many, many
ages.

“Because in a vision she showed you this monastery, and led you to a spot beyond the mountains where she vanished,
you hope that this woman whom you saw die is re-incarnated yonder. Why not? In this there is nothing impossible to
those who are instructed in the truth, though the lengthening of her last life was strange and contrary to experience.
Doubtless you will find her there as you expect, and doubtless her khama, or identity, is the same as that
which in some earlier life of hers once brought me to sin.

“Only be not mistaken, she is no immortal; nothing is immortal. She is but a being held back by her own pride, her
own greatness if you will, upon the path towards Nirvana. That pride will be humbled, as already it has been humbled;
that brow of majesty shall be sprinkled with the dust of change and death, that sinful spirit must be purified by
sorrows and by separations. Brother Leo, if you win her, it will be but to lose, and then the ladder must be reclimbed.
Brother Holly, for you as for me loss is our only gain, since thereby we are spared much woe. Oh! bide here and pray
with me. Why dash yourselves against a rock? Why labour to pour water into a broken jar whence it must sink into the
sands of profitless experience, and there be wasted, whilst you remain athirst?”

“Water makes the sand fertile,” I answered. “Where water falls, life comes, and sorrow is the seed of joy.”

“Love is the law of life,” broke in Leo; “without love there is no life. I seek love that I may live. I believe that
all these things are ordained to an end which we do not know. Fate draws me on — I fulfil my fate ——”

“And do but delay your freedom. Yet I will not argue with you, brother, who must follow your own road. See now, what
has this woman, this priestess of a false faith if she be so still, brought you in the past? Once in another life, or
so I understand your story, you were sworn to a certain nature-goddess, who was named Isis, were you not, and to her
alone? Then a woman tempted you, and you fled with her afar. And there what found you? The betrayed and avenging
goddess who slew you, or if not the goddess, one who had drunk of her wisdom and was the minister of her vengeance.
Having that wisdom this minister — woman or evil spirit — refused to die because she had learned to love you, but
waited knowing that in your next life she would find you again, as indeed she would have done more swiftly in Devachan
had she died without living on alone in so much misery. And she found you, and she died, or seemed to die, and now she
is re-born, as she must be, and doubtless you will meet once more, and again there must come misery. Oh! my friends, go
not across the mountains; bide here with me and lament your sins.”

“Nay,” answered Leo, “we are sworn to a tryst, and we do not break our word.”

“Then, brethren, go keep your tryst, and when you have reaped its harvest think upon my sayings, for I am sure that
the wine you crush from the vintage of your desire will run red like blood, and that in its drinking you shall find
neither forgetfulness nor peace. Made blind by a passion of which well I know the sting and power, you seek to add a
fair-faced evil to your lives, thinking that from this unity there shall be born all knowledge and great joy.

“Rather should you desire to live alone in holiness until at length your separate lives are merged and lost in the
Good Unspeakable, the eternal bliss that lies in the last Nothingness. Ah! you do not believe me now; you shake your
heads and smile; yet a day will dawn, it may be after many incarnations, when you shall bow them in the dust and weep,
saying to me, ‘Brother Kou-en, yours were the words of wisdom, ours the deeds of foolishness;’” and with a deep sigh
the old man turned and left us.

“A cheerful faith, truly,” said Leo, looking after him, “to dwell through aeons in monotonous misery in order that
consciousness may be swallowed up at last in some void and formless abstraction called the ‘Utter Peace.’ I would
rather take my share of a bad world and keep my hope of a better. Also I do not think that he knows anything of Ayesha
and her destiny.”

“So would I,” I answered, “though perhaps he is right after all. Who can tell? Moreover, what is the use of
reasoning? Leo, we have no choice; we follow our fate. To what that fate may lead us we shall learn in due season.”

Then we went to rest, for it was late, though I found little sleep that night. The warnings of the ancient abbot,
good and learned man as he was, full also of ripe experience and of the foresighted wisdom that is given to such as he,
oppressed me deeply. He promised us sorrow and bloodshed beyond the mountains, ending in death and rebirths full of
misery. Well, it might be so, but no approaching sufferings could stay our feet. And even if they could, they should
not, since to see her face again I was ready to brave them all. And if this was my case what must be that of Leo!

A strange theory that of Kou-en’s, that Ayesha was the goddess in old Egypt to whom Kallikrates was priest, or at
the least her representative. That the royal Amenartas, with whom he fled, seduced him from the goddess to whom he was
sworn. That this goddess incarnate in Ayesha — or using the woman Ayesha and her passions as her instruments — was
avenged upon them both at Kor, and that there in an after age the bolt she shot fell back upon her own head.

Well, I had often thought as much myself. Only I was sure that She herself could be no actual divinity,
though she might be a manifestation of one, a priestess, a messenger, charged to work its will, to avenge or to reward,
and yet herself a human soul, with hopes and passions to be satisfied, and a destiny to fulfil. In truth, writing now,
when all is past and done with, I find much to confirm me in, and little to turn me from that theory, since life and
powers of a quality which are more than human do not alone suffice to make a soul divine. On the other hand, however,
it must be borne in mind that on one occasion at any rate, Ayesha did undoubtedly suggest that in the beginning she was
“a daughter of Heaven,” and that there were others, notably the old Shaman Simbri, who seemed to take it for granted
that her origin was supernatural. But of all these things I hope to speak in their season.

Meanwhile what lay beyond the mountains? Should we find her there who held the sceptre and upon earth wielded the
power of the outraged Isis, and with her, that other woman who wrought the wrong? And if so, would the dread, inhuman
struggle reach its climax around the person of the sinful priest? In a few months, a few days even, we might begin to
know.